Lots of similarities to Beauty and the Beast. Which is fine with me as it was always a favorite of mine. However, the world is completely original and fantastic!

Nyx has been trained since the age of nine to kill the "Gentle Lord" who holds the land captive. They are under constant threat of his demons and there is no way to escape. The Lord is known for his unfair bargains and one of these bargains left Nyx betrothed to him. So she is to wed and bed him, then destroy him!

Nyx holds a lot of anger and I do not blame her. She has never been shown love by her family. She has always been known to them as a sacrifice while her twin sister is lavished with attention. I'd be pissed too! She is stuck paying the price for her father's selfishness and foolish bargain.

The Gentle Lord tells her to call him Ignifex and there is more to him than meets the eye. Part kind, part wicked and full of secrets! Then there is Shade. A shadow-like image of him that takes form at night. He too is kind but has secrets. To top it all off is the castle itself. I want to visit it! It sounds amazing. Some rooms wonderful, others horrifying (I'll just skip those, thank you so much).

There is a sort of romance triangle as both men care for Nyx and she is attracted to both. It surely can't help that, besides the eyes, they look the same.

I was hoping for a bit more on the "destroying the Lord" bit but the romance and mysterious secrets heavily trump that part of the book. Otherwise, I deeply enjoyed this.

The writing is very well done and very rich in characters and everything that surrounds them. I adored the characters. Very unique. Each have crucial flaws and each great strength. I couldn't help but like them. Except the father and aunt. While they are well written, their characters are less than scum.

I will assuredly be reading more by Rosamund Hodge in the future!

I read this whole book in about 6 hours, the last 2 of which were definitely past my normal sleep time. Not sure that was the wisest choice.

The book... was sort of a mess for me. I mean, it started off strong: Nyx was wonderfully described with all the emotions of her situation. I enjoyed how she was battling what she should be feeling with what she actually thought and felt. As soon as she gets to the castle though, there's this sarcastic sort of side that comes out that was new. Okay, fine. But Nyx is a character that sort of roller-coasters her way through. I understand that she's 17 and stressed and in a way is in a fight-or-flight/battle mode constantly. But I didn't feel I ever really understood what she was feeling once she got to the castle. Actually to be more precise I followed along all right until she got the ring and went back to her changed sister--then I completely didn't follow the logic/decisions that lead to Nyx's betrayal of Ignifex.

There was also a weird mash up of multiple "religions"/ cultures of Gods. This just got complicated and felt disjointed, as if Rosamund Hodge couldn't make up her mind and just pick one. I mean, there were Greek and Roman gods who were the mythology/history of the characters but also other gods that the people made sacrifices to/prayed to. Then there were the Kindly Ones and the sparrow, which to me strongly paralleled the Celtic/Irish stuff I've read about fairy people, old ones, or children of the forest. (For GREAT reads along this vein, try Juliet Marillier's Sevenwaters series, starts with Daughter of the Forest) Also there was obviously a demonology level too, that seemed unrelated to the gods or hell. It was a mess that for me was too disjointed and unconnected to work.
The castle itself was an interesting setting that I liked even if I didn't always understand.

The blurb also says this is a sort of retelling of Beauty & the Beast, which I definitely saw those elements. (Young girl married off to a "beast" against her will, she falls in love with him and he falls for her, he lets her go home because he loves and trusts her, hoping she will come back; magic; roses.) There are also Rumpelstiltskin traces in here too that are sort of not resolved/resolved without the main character having to do anything of her own.
Total side note:
This quest of Nyx's is a strong reminder of some Doctor Who themes: Nyx parallels River Song in that she is raised to kill the being that she ends up loving. Plus the whole time being rewritten?? Some event happens, time is rewritten so our guy doesn't exist, but the main girl character manages to remember him so her actions rescue him/bring him into her world again. Did I just describe this book or series 5 The Big Bang? BOTH.
That whole thing with an alternate universe without a Gentle Lord was weird for me, and hard to follow. But to be fair I was very tired at that point!

Plus, I'd gone into this book not realizing it was YA, and I'd been hoping for a light romance novel with sex, not the pg-13 rating. Just my idea going in, there wasn't anything wrong with the levels of romance here. (Except why does she kiss Shade the first time and so instantly love him?) Perhaps as an adult or New adult book this could have been a little more gratifying, as everything more than first base takes place off-page. I guess I missed most of the passion and seduction that many other reviews are talking about: for me it was insta-love for Shade (whom she trusts for no reason immediately) and though her growing to care for Ignifex made sense, it didn't jive with her feelings for Shade? And though she really wanted to care about her family, she kept trying to make that happen and talk herself into it and let those 'suppose to' feelings dictate her actions when she doesn't really believe those actions are right.

There were a lot of good tidbits and parts that were very interesting and promising, I just felt like there were too many cool things all thrown together that muddled the picture and made it twisty.

ALLLL that negative stuff being said, I loved the writing and the darkness here, and had a good reading experience.